Travel Story

Thursday, November 29, 2007

When I travel, I use a lot of Eagle Creek gear. It's quality stuff, and I highly recommend their products. I received an email from them asking for travel stories from their customers. They want to inspire people to travel and see the world, meaning....traveling outside the US. Thought I would give it a shot, so the following is what I wrote.

This may get published, or it may not. But at least you get to see it here.

I went to Denmark in the summertime (several years ago). Traveling about, I saw many wonderful places, including, but not limited to the Royal Palace in Copenhagen, Tivoli Gardens amusement park, and even the original Legoland (Legos originally come from Denmark). Denmark is a beautiful country, the people are friendly, and it's immaculately clean. I traveled all over (it's a small country), but eventually, I decided I should go to Germany, land of my ancestors.

Renting a car, I headed south on the highway. It didn't take me long to reach the southern border of Denmark and cross into Germany. As I drove at speeds up to 180 km/h, it doesn't take long to get anywhere. Hamburg was approaching, and I thought I should spend some time there. I don't speak German, though I had one class in college many years earlier, I knew enough words and phrases to at least figure out where I was going. I followed the signs that said "Zentrum" to make my way to the center of town. This is where the train stations are, and many hotels as well.

There are lots of hotels in the center of Hamburg. Even one that was featured in the James Bond film "Tomorrow Never Dies", but this was out of my price range. I did find a nice one right around the corner, and went in. A white haired gentleman was behind the counter as I hesitantly asked "Sprechen sie Englisch?"

The gentleman, who with his white hair somewhat resembled Einstein, smiled, and said "Yes of course, I speak English". I smiled big and felt very relieved, it made things much easier. Asking for a room for the weekend, he handed me the necessary paperwork. I was filling out the address part, putting "OK" (Oklahoma) for my state. He gave me a puzzled look and asked which state was "OK". When I told him Oklahoma it was his turn to smile real big and he said "Oh yes, that is close to where I go in the US." Now I had the puzzled look, and asked him where he went. He said "I go to Aspen Colorado to ski!".

I laughed a little, and asked him why he went all the way to Aspen to ski when the Alps were only but a few hours away. He just looked at me for a few moments and said "I'm like you, I want to go someplace out of the ordinary".